"[When] people say 'Have a nice day' to me, I feel a lot of pressure; I don't know how ... to do it," director and actor Rob Reiner once revealed to David Rosenthal in a Playboy interview. "I have moments when I seem joyful, but they always catch me by surprise.... To be honest, I think I've been happy 18 seconds in my whole life, and they've been spread out. Where there's hope, though, is that I feel there's a happy person trying to creep out of this depression."

Despite his renown as the director of such popular films as Stand by Me, When Harry Met Sally, Misery, and A Few Good Men, Reiner has lived so long under the shadow of his famous father, comedian Carl Reiner, that he has never been completely satisfied with his own accomplishments. In a Film Comment interview conducted by Harlan Jacobson, the director...